


one in five billion

by ndnickerson



Category: Nancy Drew - Carolyn Keene
Genre: Alternate Canon, F/M, First Kiss, First Meetings, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Homesickness, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Somebody to Love, World Travel, love-bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-29
Updated: 2013-06-29
Packaged: 2017-12-16 14:22:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/863010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ndnickerson/pseuds/ndnickerson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the love-bingo prompt "somebody to love." Nancy is on assignment abroad and feeling homesick when she tries to cheer herself up, and ends up meeting someone new.</p>
            </blockquote>





	one in five billion

Nancy Drew stifled a sigh of frustration as her laptop's Internet connection dropped again. Her agency-issue computer had been through so much unscathed—dropped, splashed with soda and seawater, shaken and tossed—and yet it insisted on dropping the wireless connection when she had it sitting perfectly still on her tiny desk in the basement office. She sighed and pressed the key combination to save her report, then sat back.

Her most recent assignment had wrapped up that morning, and she had already debriefed and reported to her boss. While she generally didn't like the basement office, and she didn't spend much time there anyway, at least it was some respite from the insane heat at the beginning of July.

Local time clicked over to five and Nancy checked her email one last time, then stood, stretching. Her spine cracked a few times and she grimaced; she could remember spending twelve hours in a car on stakeouts, and now forty-five minutes at a desk made her feel sluggish and almost heavy. Her tailored khakis and white button-down emphasized the toned, slender lines of her body and marked her as a Westerner. She would never be able to blend in and go undercover here, not with her reddish-gold hair and blue eyes, but that didn't really matter, not for her usual assignments.

Nancy's boss poked her head out of her office when Nancy was heading out, her computer bag slung over her shoulder. "Drew? Take a long weekend. I'll call you if there's an emergency."

Nancy's mouth dropped open. "Why?"

Agent Farrior rolled her eyes. "You're doing great, okay? But you haven't taken time off in forever, and it's a holiday weekend."

"Not around here," Nancy pointed out. "They don't exactly celebrate July fourth around here."

"Really?" Agent Farrior smiled. "Just go relax, Drew. If you even remember how."

On the way back to her small apartment, Nancy felt unmoored, her gaze unfocused as she took a seat near the back of the bus. As she scanned the passengers around her, looking for any possible threat, she was mentally on auto-pilot.

A year after her graduation from high school, she had decided to apply for a job with CIA, and she hadn't regretted it. Being an agent was amazing. She had a reputation as a hard worker who would stand up for her own morals, though, and that quiet persistence had made her relationship with her first supervisor rough. She hadn't scored one of the coveted long-term deep cover operations she had wanted, but her current assignment, three years of working protection and security in a country in the midst of chaos and turmoil, was challenging and energizing.

Three years, and she hadn't been home.

Back home her father and Hannah would be preparing for the holiday weekend with hamburgers, brats, hot dogs, potato salad, blueberry crunch with vanilla ice cream. She remembered so many July fourth celebrations spent eating on the back patio with her father and Hannah and then going to see the fireworks, hanging out with Bess and George, sometimes dragging her boyfriend of the moment along. Her boyfriends had never lasted long, and becoming an agent had only made it worse.

She had even dated a few agents, and that had definitely been a mistake, one she was almost lonely enough to repeat. That was why she hadn't taken time off in so long. Time off meant time to think, and thinking made her homesick.

Five o'clock local time meant a long time until she could talk to anyone back in River Heights, though, so Nancy went back to her apartment after a stop at a local open-air market. She wouldn't see any fireworks unless she found a livestream of some back home, and local cuisine didn't include hot dogs.

Nancy sighed as she tossed together a salad with lemon basil vinaigrette. She would find something to do—and she made that her personal assignment for the weekend. Find some unobtrusive way to celebrate an American holiday when she was several thousand miles away.

And that was what brought her to the movie theater that Thursday night.

Calling home and talking to her father the day before had helped, although when he told her how much he and Hannah missed her, she could almost feel her longing like an ache in her. She loved the work she was doing and loved her job. But even over the glitchy Internet connection, the few moments she was able to see her father's face as they talked made her remember how deeply she missed Illinois and her family and friends.

She had never seen herself as particularly conventional, but looking at Bess's social media page and seeing the latest snapshots of her baby girl playing in the sprinklers on the lawn gave her a pang of longing. She missed both of her best friends tremendously, and she hadn't even seen Bess's little girl in person yet. And she saw George grinning into the camera with a new guy, too.

On the way back to her apartment after the movie, she was either going to need to pick up more batteries for her vibrator or stop by the local bar—and she had three more days to get through before Monday. She knew Bess would tell her to go out and pick up some hot guy, but when Nancy thought about it, it had been almost a year since she had dated or slept with anyone.

She didn't know how much longer her assignment would be; thanks to her job, she could be reassigned anytime. She wasn't exactly looking for a boyfriend, though. Just someone to distract her for a little while. Just someone whose apartment she could leave in the morning without feeling ashamed or guilty about it. Someone else who just needed a night in another person's arms.

The movie she had selected was the latest American import, and the kind of movie she would almost never have seen back home—not sober and by her own choice, anyway. It was huge, loud and explosive, full of flashy special effects and entirely predictable. The audience clapped and cheered along with the plot, and Nancy was sucked into it enough to do it too. She saw mostly natives in the audience, but a few non-natives were there too, and she couldn't help wondering if they were there for the same reason she was. Maybe they couldn't be home, but watching an athletic white guy go after bad guys with a guitar-heavy soundtrack was just what they needed.

On the way out, Nancy dumped the remains of her watered-down soda in the trash and noticed a tall guy ten or so feet in front of her. He had dark hair and he wore a light blue button-down, and she wondered if he had come to the theater immediately after work.

When she dropped into the bar a few blocks away from the theater, she noticed immediately that very few women were there. She had noticed the bar when she had been on this side of town, but she hadn't made it in yet; generally after a day of work, she was happy just to get home and fall into her soft bed. It was a Thursday night, but the establishment was doing a good bit of business, and Nancy stepped up to the bar and ordered a bottle of beer. Maybe she couldn't have hot dogs or hamburgers, but she could have a beer.

Then she glanced at the menu and was delighted to see that they did actually offer an American-style hamburger. If she had known that earlier, she definitely would have stopped by before; while she did like sampling the local food, sometimes she just had a craving for a well-made hamburger. The enormous flat-panel televisions showing various sports matches she could have done without, but if she closed her eyes so the sound around her was just an indistinguishable blur of voices, it just sounded like a bar back home.

Nancy could hear Bess's voice in her ear as she spotted an empty table and headed to it with her bottle of beer and hamburger. The best cure for her loneliness might just be to pick up a guy here tonight—but she was tired of turning on the seduction she had been taught during her training and just letting the night play out the way she knew it would. If a guy worked up the nerve to talk to her, she could get him in bed. It was that simple.

She hadn't had nearly enough beer.

A group of three guys moved past her, and Nancy swiveled to avoid running into them, then realized someone else was heading for that same unoccupied table she was. She glanced over and was surprised to see that he had dark hair and wore a blue button-down, the same as the guy she had seen at the theater. For a second she wondered if he had followed her, but she wasn't undercover. Not in the conventional sense, anyway.

The guy glanced over at her and stopped short. "Oh. Sorry," he told her in the local language, and she caught the slight hesitation before he spoke. He wasn't a native speaker. He was tall and tanned and muscular, with a classic square jaw and dark, intense eyes. He looked like he would have made a perfect high-school quarterback at about the same time she had been in high school.

She wondered what he was doing there, if he was American too, if he was military out of uniform or there for some other reason.

Nancy shook her head. "Go ahead," she answered, her diction and speed more fluid, and gave him a small smile.

He paused, glancing between her and the table, and then sighed. "Want to split it?" he asked in American-accented English.

Nancy's instincts were usually good; she wouldn't be alive if they weren't. Most of the guys she met, she could tell fairly quickly how they would treat her and whether they were worth any effort at all. Given the mood she was in tonight, though, a part of her didn't even care. He was incredibly handsome, and if he wanted to help her take the edge off, she probably wouldn't turn him down.

They sat down together, and Nancy relaxed slightly. Groups of men in various types of uniforms and business attire drank all around them, gazes locked to the large television screens as they shouted at calls or plays. It was the kind of place that Bess would have been supremely uncomfortable staying in, all the moreso in a foreign country. The guy grabbed a cardboard circle for a beer mat and settled back with a sigh.

"Were you just at the movies?" Nancy asked curiously.

"Yeah," the guy said, his eyes widening in surprise. He patted his pockets. "What, did I drop the ticket stub...?"

"No, I saw you in there," Nancy admitted.

The guy smiled. "I know it sounds stupid, but... well, you know. The holiday back home, and I was feeling kinda homesick."

Nancy grinned. "Same here. So what brings you to this corner of the globe?"

He tipped back his beer. "Work," he said. "It sounded like it could be... well, fun is the wrong word, but at least something different?"

Nancy nodded. "It is that."

He wiped his hand on his napkin and extended it. "Ned Nickerson."

Nancy raised an eyebrow as she accepted his hand and shook it. "Ned?"

He gave her a polite smile, and she figured that he saw that reaction a lot. "Yeah. Old family name. And now you tell me your name...?"

"Nancy Drew," she responded, and smiled as she released his hand.

He nodded. "Nancy. Haven't heard that name very much."

Nancy wrinkled her nose. "And I can't say I've ever met a guy named Ned."

"Glad I could help you cross that off your bucket list," he told her with a wink, and she had to laugh. "So what brings _you_ here? Work, too?"

Nancy nodded. "I work for an American company," she told him, which technically was true. "And then my boss gave me the holiday off... but it's not like I can grill some hot dogs and watch fireworks here."

Ned nodded in commiseration. "Exactly. And they have hamburgers here?" He nodded at the one in front of her.

"So you haven't been here before either, huh."

He shook his head. "I've been in the country—three months, now? And don't get me wrong, I like being here, I especially like being gainfully employed. I just didn't realize how damn homesick I would be."

"First time away from home?" she asked sympathetically.

He made a soft noise. "Nah. Spent a semester in Hong Kong when I was in college."

Nancy raised her eyebrows. "That's impressive."

He smiled. "Talk about culture shock. But it was different... I knew when I would be going home."

"And you don't, now."

"Yeah." He tipped his beer back again. "That, and... well, it was different."

Ned was easy to talk to, and over the course of their conversation they figured out that their families weren't too far away from each other. And he was lonely, too. Not in a way that meant she would take him home at the end of the night and offer to help him forget about it for a while, but she didn't sense that he was particularly looking for that, either. He was looking for a friend.

Three hours of steady conversation and half a dozen drinks later, when they stood on the sidewalk outside the bar, Ned stuck his hands in his pockets. "Look, I'm not trying to creep you out, but I'd feel bad if I didn't make sure you got home okay."

Nancy couldn't help chuckling. "I'm—I'm in law enforcement. I'll be okay. You're sweet, though."

Ned's eyes widened a little. "Law enforcement, huh. Then maybe I could say that as an inebriated expatriate, you're duty-bound to make sure _I_ get home okay?"

"Okay, just the fact that you could say the _words_ 'inebriated expatriate' kind of undermined your argument," she told him with a little twist of her lips, but when she flagged down a cab, she joined him in it.

They had both been drinking, though she wasn't so drunk as to make a stupid decision, and she had already made up her mind not to go inside his apartment with him if he asked her to. Even so, she was a little disappointed when he didn't. "Would you like to get together again?" he asked her, when they were standing at his door. "Not, like, a date or anything, just..." He shrugged. "To not be quite so homesick."

She had noticed the marginally paler band of flesh around the base of his left ring finger, but he hadn't mentioned a wife back home, and she hadn't pressed. And he wasn't asking her for a date, and she didn't intend to let it get so far that she would need to ask herself if she could sleep with a married guy who wasn't a mark. "Like for the next brash American blockbuster and a beer or two? Sure. I'm—I have some out of town assignments every now and then, but yeah. That sounds great."

They exchanged information, almost shyly; she couldn't remember the last time she had met a guy organically and actually given him her number. Then he offered her his hand again, and she realized again how warm his skin was, and how warm his eyes were when they gazed into her own.

"Good night, Nancy. I'm glad I met you."

She smiled, and felt a sudden impulse to stand on her tiptoes and brush a kiss against his cheek, but she fought it. "I'm glad I met you too, Ned. Good night."

As soon as she was back in the cab and on her way back to her apartment, she found herself regretting that she didn't know what his cheek felt like under her lips.

\--

The next week, they did find an acceptable movie at the theater, and the week after that, and the week after that. They invited friends the first few times, but they weren't really friends, just workmates. Nancy had known many of the people she worked with for at least a year, but her line of work didn't leave them that much time to unwind, or let them put their guards down so often. The workmates Ned brought along were a few fellow American expats, but mostly natives who worked with him. The group meant they didn't have time alone together, and that was okay with her. She was watching closely, but that mark around the base of his ring finger just kept fading; she didn't catch any significant glances between Ned and his buddies telling her that he had taken off his ring to be around her. Then they would head to that same bar, and while they were ordering pitchers of draft beer, Nancy and Ned would steal a few minutes just to say hi to each other without being observed or questioned. Which was harder in Nancy's case than Ned's, she had to admit.

Then they hit a week where nothing at the theater was appealing to either of them, and Nancy took a deep breath and invited him back to her place to watch something with her. No coworkers around, no easy end to the evening... and the bed she had made with clean sheets that afternoon waiting, unmentioned, in the darkness of her bedroom.

He brought over a six-pack of beer and whistled when she opened the door for him and he walked into her place. "Law enforcement?"

"Loosely," Nancy admitted, taking the beer and putting it in her fridge. "It's not much."

"You kidding? I split an apartment with two other guys and I'd kill to have this much space to myself. Do you have a roommate?"

Nancy shook her head. "Just me."

It was that night, over the stuffed mushroom bites Nancy had made as mock bar food, that he told her about his wife—or ex-wife, Nancy supposed. Ned's wife had been seeing someone else, and Ned had been floored by the realization; he had never, _never_ expected it. When he found out and confronted her, she had been tearful, apologetic, but when Ned had told her that she had to decide, right then, him or her boyfriend, she had begged Ned just to let her say goodbye to the guy she had been seeing. She owed him that. Nancy commented that she had owed Ned not seeing the other guy at all, to which he nodded in agreement.

Then Ned had asked his wife how long it had been going on, and she had stammered out _a few weeks, maybe a month_ , and he had remembered their anniversary two weeks earlier and the way she had clicked glasses with him and toasted to another fifty years, and realized that for the rest of his life he would be wondering when it would happen again. When he would find out that the few weeks or six months of lies and deception had been going on.

"Any kids?" Nancy asked softly, tilting her beer bottle.

Ned shook his head, then snorted. "Not with me, but I heard she might be pregnant with the new guy. And good for her." He shook his head again, and tipped back his own bottle. "After that, going to the other side of the earth seemed like a good idea. Not running into her at the store or hearing about her through old friends. But all I have to do is go online and there's another reminder of her. I can't run far enough away—and besides, why did I have to be the one to leave, when she's the one who did this?"

Nancy shook her head. "I don't know. It's not fair."

"It isn't." He took another sip of beer and sighed. "I just feel like such an idiot for missing it. I really thought she was the only one for me... but she couldn't love me if she did that, could she."

Nancy shrugged. "I don't know. People fall in love and out of love all the time. I'm sure she loved you when she married you."

Ned gave her a small half-smile. "That's not much comfort," he told her. "Why get married at all, swear to spend the rest of your life with someone, if it's just going to end like this?"

"I don't know." Nancy gazed at her beer bottle, working her fingernail under the corner of the bottle's label. "I think for some people, they do find that one in five billion, and that's it. There will be no one else. But for so many more people, they find someone who is... I guess, just right enough. And maybe they talk themselves into hoping that it'll last forever."

"Like I did, you mean."

"I've never been married," she told him with another shrug. "So you met this girl and you thought, 'This is it, this is the only girl I will ever want to be with'?"

When Ned paused for a second, Nancy looked back down at her beer. "I just didn't think there was any in-between," he admitted. "All or nothing. And now it just feels like it's nothing, nothing left. What happened hurt so much that, well, it's a relief to know I'll never love anyone like that again. Never be that kind of idiot again."

Nancy smiled down at her beer bottle. "One of my best friends in the world has had her heart broken a million times," she murmured. "And every time she would get up and dust herself off and say, Well, he wasn't the right one. Maybe next one will be. And it happened over and over. I can't even tell you how many pints of ice cream and movie marathons the three of us shared, trying to get her over it."

"And what happened to her?"

"Now she has three kids with this totally amazing guy," Nancy said, glancing up at Ned with a smile. "So no matter how many times I get it wrong, and I've gotten it wrong a lot before... I think about how she would just throw herself into the next relationship without a safety net or anything. She kissed a lot of frogs to find a prince, but she never gave up looking."

"So you won't give up looking either?"

Nancy shrugged. "She's a lot stronger than I am, in some ways," she said. "She didn't feel complete without a guy. And I don't know that many guys who would stick around long enough to get to know me, and besides... if I'm not happy without a guy, I don't understand how finding one _would_ make me happy."

"Probably wouldn't," Ned admitted, and when their eyes met, she ignored the way her heart started beating faster. He wasn't in any place to be ready for a relationship, and she couldn't really afford the time and effort it would take, not here.

That didn't mean she wanted to stop seeing him, though.

\--

Over the next few months, the movie evenings continued, and they did occasionally go to the theater to catch new releases, but they spent most of those evenings at Nancy's apartment. One night just before he left she did give him that kiss on the cheek she had always regretted not giving him the night they met, and he embraced her in return—and then it became their custom, that chaste kiss and brief embrace before they parted. One night he was there until four o'clock the next morning and said he had to get back to his place, but Nancy said he was welcome to spend the night at her place, since he practically already had. He agreed, claiming the couch, and Nancy stayed awake in her own bed until she could tell he was asleep.

Maybe he was a little damaged, but under the hurt he was a great, considerate guy with an amazing sense of humor who was far away from his home. Privately Nancy couldn't imagine how blind his wife must have been to give such a guy up, and she watched him to see what weakness or flaw had driven his ex-wife into another man's arms, but she never found it. And Nancy and Ned ended up talking about almost everything, watching movies they both remembered from home, even sometimes making faux-American meals together. He loved Mexican food, but it wasn't even really Mexican food, it was tex-mex, and so one night they made an enormous plate of "nachos" with several substitutions and surfaced for air a few minutes later, their hands and faces covered with salsa and cheese, and just laughed at the expressions on each other's faces.

One night became two nights a week, and then Nancy realized that on the rare weeks she wasn't able to see him at least twice, she was irritated and distracted. They exchanged email addresses and she contacted him even when she was on assignment or he was on a business trip, just to catch up with him. She never said anything quite so gauche as _I miss you_ or _I can't wait to see you again_ , but even so, it was still true.

Some nights she caught his gaze lingering on her, but he always looked away before she could see the expression on his face. She told herself that she was imagining the tension between them, but that feeling of loneliness and need for human contact had vanished. Over time she became comfortable enough with him to shove him when he made a bad joke or punch him playfully in the arm, or relax against his shoulder while they were watching a movie together, and those hugs became longer. When Hannah sent her care packages from the United States, she always took some of the contents to work but she shared some with Ned too, and he did the same whenever his mother sent him homemade cookies and prepackaged American snacks he couldn't find locally.

Nancy was glad that she had met _him_. She was glad she hadn't wasted that meeting on a one-time one-night stand. But she found herself missing him during that third night of the weekend they weren't together. She found herself imagining a pair of dark eyes and strong, broad shoulders over her as she relieved her frustration with her vibrator.

But there was no way she would risk the companionship and safety she felt with him by inviting him to her bed, not now. He was one of the only true friends she had, stranded on the other side of the earth the way she was, and they were past that point. Besides, if he felt that way about her, she had a feeling he would have said something.

And her vibrator wouldn't leave or betray her.

\--

"Next week." Agent Farrior smiled as she handed Nancy the orders. "It'll be a shame to see you go, but you've done a great job here, Drew."

Nancy looked down at her new assignment, dismay sweeping over her. She had almost finished her fourth year in Agent Farrior's office, and while before she had resented anything that felt stable or regular, that was one thing about this assignment—it hadn't been. The only thing that had felt stable or regular was the man she would be seeing Saturday night.

And that, she remembered, was why it had been such a stupid idea in the first place to form a relationship with someone else, even one as innocent as the one she had with Ned. She was an agent, and the only thing constant about an agent's life was change. The fellow agents she had dated had understood that, even if they had been assholes.

Would he understand, when she was gone? And why did she care so much what his reaction would be, she wondered.

When Ned came over Saturday night, he brought a bottle of wine with him, and Nancy accepted it with a smile, not quite trusting herself to look into his eyes. The easiest thing for her to make with the convenient local ingredients was a sort of stir-fry dish, and while she wanted to make something special for one of the last meals they would share, she just didn't have the energy. She felt both delighted at the prospect of a new assignment, and incredibly depressed at the thought of leaving. At the thought of leaving him.

After their dinner was over, Nancy picked up her wineglass and watched the deep purple liquid swirl around in the bowl. "Ned, my boss called me in," she told him. "I have a new assignment."

"That's good news, right?"

"Yeah," Nancy said with a small, humorless smile. "It is. But it also means I'll be leaving."

"Leaving...?"

She nodded. "Moving. Friday," she murmured.

His eyes widened. "That soon?"

"That's the way it is, in this line of work," she said. "It really sucks."

"Your work? I thought—"

"No, no. How quick it can be... walking away..." She sighed. "I love my job. I do. I love every part of it, except this."

Ned gave her a small smile. "Then that's not so bad," he commented. "If that's the only part you don't like."

They settled onto the couch together after clearing the table, and Ned wrapped his arm around Nancy's shoulders after she cued up the movie. She settled against him with a long sigh, and she didn't hear a word of the dialogue. She just heard and felt him breathing, felt her sadness grow with each passing second.

The movie was nearly over when Ned sighed beside her. "Okay, I haven't been able to concentrate at all," he murmured. "I can't believe you'll be gone. I don't know what I'm going to do without you here."

"You'll get by," she murmured. "Movies and care packages and hamburgers from the bar will get you through."

"But you won't be here at all?"

She shook her head. "We can still email," she told him. "I mean, if you want to stay in contact."

"Of course I do." He took a deep breath. "You're one of my—well, my closest friends, now. Here, definitely."

Nancy smiled and closed her eyes. "And in six months, when your contract is up, you'll be with your family and friends again," she murmured. "You'll forget all about me..."

"No," he told her softly. "I would never."

They lingered together, talking, and Nancy wondered if he felt the same reluctance she did. She didn't want the night to be over. He told her that he wanted to see her again at least once before she left, and she agreed immediately, even though her instincts told her it would be a mistake. She didn't want to make it any harder to leave than it already was, but she couldn't resist.

Damn him. Oh, damn him. Despite every way she had tried to stop herself, despite everything, she loved him. And at least she was leaving before she made a mess of it, with a man who wasn't ready to be in a relationship with anyone else.

Well, Ned hadn't been when they had first met—but she couldn't even remember the last time he had talked about his ex-wife. At first he had brought Amy up a handful of times in each conversation, but now it was like he was finally getting over her.

And while she knew he was eager to get back to the States, while she was eager too, she hated the idea that he would see the woman who had hurt him so thoroughly and feel that same betrayal all over again—or worse, that he would see his former wife and wonder why he had ever let her get away.

"If you want to stay tonight, we could have breakfast or something in the morning," she suggested. "Just... not waste any time."

"Sure," Ned murmured. "I'd like that."

That night, she very nearly invited him to her bed. He knew where the pillow and blanket she gave him were kept, and he found them without asking if she wanted him to do anything else. As he spread them out she opened her mouth, wondering if she should say it, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. He had called her his friend, and she wanted to keep that.

 _It's the last time,_ she told herself. _The last chance. And if you let this go by, you won't have it again._

And she was okay with that. She would rather count him among her friends than possibly destroy it with a foolish, selfish decision that she would only regret.

"Good night," she murmured when she was standing at the door of her bedroom.

"Good night," he answered, holding her gaze for a long moment before they looked away.

\--

The last time she saw him, he told her that they would go out and eat at a nice restaurant, and actually remember where they were and what they had been doing. It was a date, in a way that none of their other time together had been. He dressed up and she did too, and from the first moment she saw him, she tried to lock it in her memory, how incredibly handsome he looked and always had to her.

She answered his questions during their meal as much as she could, about where she would be going, what she would be doing, how long her assignment would be. Most of the questions she couldn't answer yet, but they made her wonder. She had told him that she would rather be happy in and of herself than depend on someone else for it, and that was still true—but she had a terrible feeling that if she felt as lonely as she had before they had met on her next assignment, she would be lucky. She had a feeling it would only be worse where she was going.

After their meal, Ned escorted her home, just the way he had insisted on doing the night they had met. Nancy's heart beat faster when she thought about asking him inside for a nightcap, and then maybe to her bed.

At her door, though, Ned stopped and leaned down, kissing her cheek as he wrapped her in one last hug. "I am going to miss you so much," he told her. "So, so very much. I'm so happy I got homesick last July."

Nancy had to chuckle at that. "Me too," she murmured, gazing into his eyes. She could feel that her own were gleaming, and she hated that, trying to tell herself to calm down. She was overreacting, she was sure.

They just held each other for a long time. Then he took a deep breath, released her  and reached into his pocket, taking out an envelope. "Don't open this until you get where you're going, okay?" he murmured. "And if you... well, you know how to contact me."

She nodded, accepting the envelope. "Okay."

He smiled, reaching up to cup her cheek. "I'm not going to say goodbye, because I can't believe this is the last time I'll ever see you, so... Take care of yourself, Drew."

"You too, Nickerson."

When he turned and began to walk away, after one long last look, Nancy took a deep breath. "Ned, wait..."

He turned back around and Nancy closed the distance between them, slipping her arm around his shoulders. She stood on her tiptoes and brushed the softest kiss against his lips. "I won't forget you," she murmured. "Not as long as I live."

He leaned down and returned her kiss, just as softly. "And I'll never forget you either, Drew."

Nancy waited until she was on the plane heading to her next assignment to open the envelope he had given her. Her stomach was full of butterflies, and she wondered why he had felt the need to give her a note for the first time since they had met, if his message was good.

_Nancy,_

_I apologize for the cloak and dagger routine. Normally I wouldn't put this all down in a letter; I would just tell you to your face. But maybe that guy... well, maybe I'm not quite him anymore._

_Getting to know you, being friends with you, I've enjoyed every minute of it. You're a really amazing woman, and a part of me wishes we had met under very different circumstances, but there's nothing I can do about that now. I really hope we can stay friends, after what I'm about to tell you—especially after what I'm about to tell you. And if you read the next paragraph and you don't feel the same way, the only favor I ask of you is this: stop reading and rip up this letter, forget you ever read it, and pretend it never happened. I won't be angry, I promise that. Just email me the way you normally would, and we'll both forget this ever happened._

_I've fallen for you, Nan. I think I fell for you a long time ago._

_At first, when we met in that bar, well, I was hurting and angry and I think I would've picked you up and tried to sweet-talk you into bed, if I'd been able to work up the nerve. If I'd felt like you wanted that. But more than that, I wanted someone to talk to—and I felt like having a one-night stand with you would be all we could have. One night of feeling not quite so lonely, or a lot more nights, even though I thought you had the most beautiful blue eyes I'd ever seen. As soon as you walked into that bar, I couldn't take my eyes off you, and maybe I just happened to go for the same table you did on purpose._

_At first I was hurting too much to know how I felt about anything, really. I just knew that you'd be a rebound if you were anything, and no one deserved to be the rebound after that nightmare at the end of my marriage. And then the pain just faded and I didn't really know or care why, if I was falling for you because I needed someone to fall for, or if it was just you and all you were and all you meant to me. You were like a link to home, but more than that you started to feel_ like _home to me. Your apartment, your eyes, the way you laughed, your smile. Please believe me when I say that what I had with Amy wasn't anything like that._

_I know it's cowardly, but I couldn't risk that tenuous grip on something that finally felt right again, if you didn't feel the same way about me. And if you're still reading this in pity or sympathy, if you don't feel that way, then please realize I've been doing okay this long not expecting you to return this, and I'll survive somehow if all we can be is friends. Anything less than friends, though—that's the thought I can't stand._

_I don't know what this feeling means, and I don't know what to ask you, or if I even need to ask you anything. I guess just to let me know either way. Now that we're safely apart, we can avoid the embarrassment of trying to keep out of each other's way if all this has done is mortify you._

_On the other hand, I have so politely shot myself in the foot with my anxiety, if you feel the same way. By now you're a thousand miles away from me, for God knows how long, and I hate the idea that I'll never see you again, even if it's just to watch some stupid movie together and laugh at it with you._

_I love you, and I never thought I would ever love anyone again. But you, Nancy—I think you're that one in five billion. I think you're the reason that things didn't work out with her and never would, because I hadn't yet realized that she wasn't the one I was meant for. And maybe you'll tell me I'm wrong, but I hope you don't._

_Either way, though, I won't do anything you don't want. I'll be your friend the rest of your life if that's what you want. But if you want more, and I can give you that... then I will._

_Love,_

_Ned_

For the rest of the flight, Nancy wrote and rewrote her response over and over in her head, trashing it every time, reconsidering every time. It wasn't perfect, by the time she landed and was able to find a wireless Internet connection, but it worked.

_Ned,_

_I read your letter, and I feel the same way—I have for so long._

_I'll see you again when I can, and we can go from there._

_I love you. More later, once I'm settled in._

_Nancy_

\--

Her new assignment lasted the better part of a year, and she lost track of the number of emails she and Ned exchanged, the number of calls they placed to each other even once he was back in the United States, the online video chats. She admitted how much she had wanted to ask him to bed, and how afraid she had been of how he would react—and he told her how, every single time he had been struggling with that same choice himself, she apparently had, too. If they had just admitted it...

But Nancy knew what she couldn't quite enunciate. If they had gone to bed together and she hadn't known how he felt about her, then she probably would have destroyed it all anyway; she would have considered their relationship played out, the way he had thought it would be ruined by a one-night stand the night they met. In the back of her mind, she wasn't sure if they hadn't overshot and waited too long, though. Maybe they loved each other, but it was safe when they were so far apart—and he was back in the States, over his ex-wife, and lonely. And she was so far away.

He could find someone else. She dreaded that day, that email, that terse apologetic message.

At the end of her assignment, she went in for her performance review with Agent Trager, who pulled out her file with a dramatic flourish. "You've done a fine job, Drew," he told her. "But I know you have bigger and better things on your mind, and an opportunity has come up. Long-term undercover assignment. You'd be infiltrating a suspected terrorist organization. Kind of thing you've always wanted to do, eh?"

A smile automatically came to Nancy's face. Agent Trager was right; it was exactly the kind of thing she had always wanted. Something that would test her skills and intelligence, something that would do some definite measurable good in the world.

And it would keep her away from Ned and her family and friends for years longer.

"Is it possible that before I make up my mind, I could make a visit home?" she asked. "I don't know if it's a time-sensitive insertion..."

Trager frowned and glanced down at the assignment, clearly taken at least a little by surprise. "Well, the support documents and legend are being drawn up," he said. "Building the contacts you'd need. I don't know how long I could give you; I don't know how long you would have before they would need to pass the assignment on to someone else. Did I misunderstand, Agent Drew?"

Nancy shook her head, tucking a loose strand of red-gold hair behind her ear. "You didn't. Not at all. I just... I haven't been home in a very long time, and sometimes I can't even clearly remember what it is that I'm missing so much."

Agent Trager nodded slowly. "All right. I'll let you know when we need you back, and if you decide you need to pass this on..."

Nancy nodded. "I understand," she murmured.

Twelve hours later, she was on a plane.

\--

While Nancy wanted to see Ned immediately on touching down at O'Hare, her father and Hannah and Bess and George were the ones to meet her at the airport, and she knew that was the way it should be. Each one of them hugged her for at least two minutes, commenting on how good she looked, promising her all the things she had loved: a slice or two at the River Heights pizza parlor, half a tray of baked goodies at Peterson's bakery, Hannah's chocolate cake and martinis at the Skylight Lounge. All of it sounded amazing, after all the time she had been away.

But she didn't want just a week or two of it. She wanted it all back, and being able to see Ned two or three nights a week was part of it.

She contacted her boss on the second day she was home, the person who had the power to make sure she infiltrated the terrorist cell or took some other assignment, and explained what she wanted. She knew they were under no obligation to meet her request, and while she waited for a reply, she couldn't wait; she contacted Ned, letting him know she was home and safe, and that she wanted to see him. They made a date for that Saturday night, and Nancy desperately hoped that she would have an answer by then. No matter what she heard, though, what she said to Ned would be the same.

She dressed carefully for their date, in a blue dress she had always loved, one that fit her well and set off her eyes beautifully. They had arranged to meet at the restaurant, and Nancy was staying in a hotel room—but not for too much longer, she was sure.

She had seen his face between, but it hadn't been real—just in her mind, just through an Internet stream. Seeing him in person was a thousand times better, but as soon as their gazes met, she felt both exuberant and strangely shy, like no time at all had passed—like too much had.

"Hi Ned."

"Hey Nan," Ned murmured, pulling her into his arms, and she closed her eyes. He smelled faintly different, or at least she thought he did, but his eyes, his warmth, those were the same.

"I missed you. God, I missed you so much."

"I missed you too."

Reluctantly they parted and the hostess led them to a table, distributing their menus. Nancy glanced over hers, and waited until they had placed their drink orders to say what had been on her mind for the past two days.

"So you're back for good."

Ned nodded. "I am. Although... like I told you. If you're somewhere and I'm able to be with you..."

He would do it. He would leave his home behind again for her. She would have called it premature, rash... but she had been so touched when he had told her that.

She reached for his hand. "They granted my request," she told him, and she couldn't stop herself from grinning. "I'll be here. You don't have to go anywhere."

Ned's eyes widened. "The assignment...?"

"It will go to someone else. Someone who's just as qualified, I'm sure."

His brows drew together. "But... it's everything you wanted..."

"It was," she agreed. "But there's something I want a little bit more, now."

\--

He had an apartment in Chicago. She had seen it when they had chatted with each other online—certain parts of it, anyway. The wall opposite the television in the living room, the headboard of his bed. Nancy spent the entire car trip there glad she wasn't in the car with him; if she had her way, they wouldn't even make it that far.

They waited until he had kicked the door shut behind them to crash together, his mouth immediately pressed to hers, his hands at her waist. It was like every bit of the desire she had denied herself had roared back, magnified a thousand times, and every ounce of force she had used to keep them apart was working just as strongly to pull them together tonight.

She barely remembered or cared how her dress and shoes came off, and every kiss made her more breathless. She didn't retain anything at all about his apartment, just the impression of neutral walls, carpet under her bare toes, how soft his comforter was when they collapsed onto it still entwined.

"I love you. I love you, I love you..."

They murmured it, whispered it into each other's skin, into the cups of each other's ears; they drew it with their fingertips on each other's flesh. As soon as she was naked she was wrapped around him and he around her, and her lips parted as they gazed into each other's eyes, in the darkness of his bedroom.

"Please..."

"Yes."

They started out with her on top, then shifted to their sides, then with her on her back and his weight pinning her down, then back again. With his every thrust she shivered and arched, kissing him again and again, speechless with how incredible it felt. If her heart could have burst, it would have. And if she had known what she had very nearly lost that night, when she had wanted this but had been too afraid to risk it...

She whimpered, digging her nails into his shoulder, bucking as his thumb rubbed her clit. She was drowning, tense and begging and _pleading_ , and it had been so long, so damn long since she hadn't had to give herself this release.

And he took his time with it, savoring it and her and the incredible rightness, the unspeakable joy of it. They kissed and gasped against each other, and when she was close they slowed down, drawing it out only to build it back up again.

By the time she gave herself over to it, she was so wet that she could hear him moving inside her, and her every breath was a sob. "Yes, please, _please_ ," she panted, tightening her legs around him to draw him closer, arching to meet his every thrust. "Oh yes, oh _yesssss_..."

He fucked her until she released her first breathless scream, her hips rocking under his, her nails dragging down his back. He moved inside her and she could feel nothing beyond him; she thrashed and he groaned as her inner flesh clenched tight and slick around him. On his next thrust she clenched a little tighter around him and they both cried out at the pleasure of it.

When they were both spent he rolled onto his side and she rolled with him, clinging to each other, panting their breath back. Her clit, oh, he had stroked it until she had almost lost her mind at the pleasure of it, and even now she was still throbbing faintly with the aftershocks of her orgasm.

Ned brushed his lips against hers, softly. "I have wanted that for so long," he whispered, his fingers combing through her hair.

"Me too," she whispered. "Oh my God, if I'd known..."

Ned smiled. "But we know now," he whispered. "Nan... I've never been this close to _anyone_. Not anyone. And I almost just let you walk away, without telling you..."

She cupped his cheek, gazing into his eyes. "But once I found you, once we found each other..." She trailed her hand down, lacing her fingers between Ned's. "We were like this, and I could feel every minute passing that we were apart... and I would have come back to you. Even if... even if you didn't feel this way, even if I didn't love you like this. You feel like a piece of me I never even knew was missing, Ned. And whether you were my friend or my lover, I wouldn't have been able to let you go."

He kissed her slowly, their hands still joined, and shifted onto his back with her still sprawled over him. "So now I can tell you in person," he murmured, "everything I never could, before. How incredible and beautiful you are, and how I saw in you something I wanted, this peace... just knowing who you are and being okay with that. What you told me kept coming back to me, that unless I could be happy alone I could never be happy with anyone else, not really... and I wanted so much to be happy again, but the thought of being happy without you in my life somehow, that was more than I could bear."

They had said such things to each other in a thousand different ways while they were apart, but the sentiment had stayed with her, had stayed with both of them. So many nights they had lain awake, each thinking about the other. So many nights he had told himself that her job, her life, her happiness meant leaving their relationship the way it was—but he had still felt her gaze lingering on him sometimes, the same as she had. She had been afraid to even imagine what she could have lost, until the decision had already been made for her.

"So no more globe-trotting for a little while?" He reached up and brushed a lock of hair from her glowing face.

"That depends."

"On what?"

"On what they might be able to give me..." She kissed the tip of his nose, then his upper lip. "And what you want."

"What I want is you."

Her teasing smile widened into a grin. "Likewise, Mr. Nickerson. But if what you want is a nice little picket fence..."

"Mmm. I don't know..." He brought his head up and kissed her gently. "Is that what would make you happy?"

She took a deep breath. "What would make me happy is to make up for the last year that I had to spend away from you. Every kiss I would have given you, every night I would have fallen asleep in your arms. And then, when there are no more surprises, if you still want to be with me... they'll probably give me what I ask, Ned. An assignment here or abroad, long-term or short.

"There is one thing I do know, though. I'm no good without you, to them or myself or anyone."

"I thought you told me that it was better to be happy alone..."

"I was a different person back then. I only ever knew what it was to be without you... like only having one hand. Now that I've had two...?" She shrugged, leaning down to kiss him again.

"I know exactly what you mean," he murmured. "And speaking of hands... that went entirely too fast."

"Hmm?"

"Were you wearing some pretty little silky, lacy set...?"

Nancy chuckled. "You don't even remember?"

"I was distracted by the beautiful girl underneath." He combed his fingers through her hair. "I want a picket fence and cookouts and beers on the weekends, and you in my bed waiting for me. I want you to come to me after work and tell me everything, _everything_ , all of it; I want to know you, baby. And I want to know that this, that the way we feel about each other... that this will never diminish, that this is forever. I want a woman who was trained to be a ghost to give me forever."

She took his hand and laced her fingers between his again. "For as long as you hold me I will never let you go," she whispered. "I can't promise you anything else, but I know all the way down to my heart that _this_ will never change, not for me. I can't give you up, and I never would. I never will."

He brought their joined hands to his lips. "One in five billion?" he whispered.

"One in an infinity," she whispered. "One in all the world, Ned."


End file.
